Some communication standards require that identifiers be assigned to infrastructure network devices and user equipments to ensure that each device or equipment is uniquely identified. For example, the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard, which is a standard for wireless communication of high-speed data for mobile phones and data terminals, requires a unique identifier to be assigned to each cell and/or each Evolved Node B (eNB) associated with each cell within a network. Using the assigned identifiers, each cell is uniquely identified and distinguished from other cells included in the network. The uniquely assigned identifiers are used to track, record, and analyze cell-related factors, such as traffic, capacity, usage, and data volume, or make changes to the infrastructure of the network.
In the United States, LTE eNBs are often identified using six digit identifiers. Each eNB identifier (eNB ID) comprises of two parts: a market identifier (Market ID) that identifies the area or market at which the eNB is positioned and an eNB value (or eNB count) that describes the specific eNB being identified. The market ID is typically a three-digit identifier (e.g., area code) assigned by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) or the North American Numbering Plan Administration (NANPA). The eNB value is commonly three digits and is assigned by the service provider providing communications services via the eNB.
In the recent years, LTE networks have been growing to support the increasing demand for wireless bandwidth. Additional eNBs have been deployed to support the growing LTE networks such that, in some markets, the traditional three-digit eNB value representation scheme is no longer able to uniquely represent all of the deployed eNBs. In such markets, four-digit identifiers are used to represent the eNB value. However, in the areas that use four digit identifiers, the common identification scheme requires that the leftmost or the rightmost digit of the four-digit identifier is dropped when recording the eNB value. This results in having duplicate eNB values, can result in the traffic being recorded improperly, and can cause analysis and correction problems.